The weekend saw something disturbing on the streets of Sydney, when 39 Israeli soldiers and military veterans – many of whom had been involved in the military campaigns in Gaza, West Bank and Lebanon – were granted visas to enter Australia and allowed to run in the Sydney Marathon.
The Australian Centre for International Justice had provided information to the federal government indicating that some members of this group may have been involved in war crimes, crimes against humanity, torture and genocide, and argued that instead of granting them visas, these people should have been referred to the Australian Federal Police. Yet the Department of Home Affairs ignored this information and proceeded to grant visas to the group, a decision that was widely criticised by many people within the Australian community.
There were also reports that Roy Oryon, a former lieutenant in the infamous Golani Brigade, was a member of this group, which had been involved in an incident where 15 paramedics and rescue workers were deliberately targeted and killed in Gaza last year, as well as involvement in many other military operations since October 2023.
The timing of this event made the government’s lack of concern even more galling because, only eleven days before the marathon, Israel Defense Forces announced that no-one was going to be charged over the April 2024 attack that killed Zomi Frankcom and six other World Central Kitchen workers. These aid workers had been travelling in clearly identified vehicles after delivering food to a warehouse in Gaza, when they were repeatedly struck by Israeli drones.
Israel has long accepted that this was a serious operational failure, its initial investigation found breaches of orders and operating procedures, and senior officers were disciplined. But now the IDF is saying that the decisions of the commanders did not create a reasonable suspicion of criminal misconduct and, as a result, no further investigations will be forthcoming.
What’s made this decision even more unacceptable is the officer responsible for the attack – Colonel Nochi Mendel, who had been removed from his position for breaches of rules of engagement and ignoring standard operating procedures – had the gall to appear on Australian national television and almost gloat about it: “I’m the commander”, he said, “and I’m the one who gave the order to carry out the operation. I didn’t run away from the situation … I gave the order; don’t look for anyone else.” And to add further insult to injury, Mendel went on to say “I’m not sorry for what I did.”
It’s not clear if anyone in the federal government watched this exchange – after all, according to foreign minister Penny Wong, it is difficult to “judge from afar” – but here was an Israeli commander acknowledging that he had ordered the operation that killed an Australian citizen and six other humanitarian workers. On national television.
His own military had concluded that serious operational failures occurred, and he lost his position as a consequence, yet more than two years later, nobody is going to face criminal charges, while the commander responsible is telling an Australian audience that he had no regrets about his actions.
Wong did describe Mendel’s comments as “utterly disgraceful” and said the Frankcom family deserves accountability, but accountability is not something that magically appears from the ether – it’s something that has to be forced. Her response, which has ultimately achieved nothing and certainly not the accountability that she’s been calling for, also exposed the central problem with Australia’s policy towards Israel: words of outrage have become a substitute for action, and the government has no intention at all of holding Israel to account.
The Albanese government has repeatedly expressed “concern”, demanded explanations and called for accountability throughout the Gaza war, but when Israel’s own processes produce no criminal prosecution over the illegal killing of an Australian citizen, nothing meaningful occurs. And if there’s no consequence, the same actions by Israel will be repeated, as we have seen time and again.
The Frankcom case is especially concerning because these types of incidents can remove the excuses that are normally available to governments when needing to confront the atrocities that occur in other countries. Zomi Frankcom was not an anonymous victim like the over 71,000 names in Gaza the government can easily forget about: she was Australian citizen, working for a major international humanitarian organisation, and her movements were in a zone that was meant to be open so the desperately needed food supplies could be delivered to a starving population. When the Israeli military is so in the wrong, this is the moment that the Australian government can actually do something.
Israel accepted that its forces killed her and accepted that serious failures occurred, yet there’s still no prosecution. The Australian government can continue to tell the Frankcom family that it’s seeking answers, but after more than two years, the course of action is no longer about asking Israel for explanations, it’s about implementing actions that will force an adequate response – such as expelling the Israeli ambassador, Hillel Newman.
This is what makes this Sydney Marathon controversy far more than a long run around the city, or even the participation of military personnel in an international event. It’s the duplicity in what the Australian government decides to scrutinise, who it allows into the country, and how it treats these allegations of international war crimes. And Australia has got a very uncomfortable history when it comes to acceptance of war criminals, alleged or otherwise.
Journalist and author Mark Aarons documented much of that history in War Criminals Welcome: Australia, a Sanctuary for Fugitive War Criminals Since 1945, outlining how many people implicated in Nazi atrocities entered Australia after World War II, while government after government failed to investigate them properly, even when they had clear knowledge and information about these atrocities, and exactly where to locate these people.
Some of this was due to political indifference, but in other cases, people with known extremist or violent backgrounds were considered useful to Western intelligence agencies during the Cold War because of their anti-communist stances – Nazis, for example – while in the post-war era, war criminals connected with the Khmer Rouge, Afghan, Chilean, Argentinian security forces were also tolerated.
The historical circumstances are obviously different, but the parallels are exactly the same: Australia has a strong reluctance to investigate suspected war crimes when it’s politically inconvenient to do so, and rarely calls them to account anyway.
Israel also has form when it comes to protecting its own when it comes to disputed killings and investigations in Palestine. The Israeli human rights organisation Yesh Din recently produced research that indicated that the chances of a member of the Israel Defense Forces being prosecuted for unlawfully killing a Palestinian is around 0.4 per cent, if not less.
The most notorious of these incidents in recent times was the killing of five-year-old Hind Rajab in January 2024, where she was trapped inside a car containing members of her dead family while desperately communicating with Palestinian emergency workers. Two Palestine Red Crescent paramedics were dispatched to rescue her after their route had been coordinated through Israeli authorities, but they too were deliberately targeted and killed.
Despite the ample evidence of satellite imagery, audio recordings, physical and forensic evidence that confirmed that the three were killed by Israeli tanks, Israel Defense Forces denied responsibility. Two years later, the Israeli military finally acknowledged that its troops had actually opened fire on the vehicle and announced a criminal investigation into the incident, but we can see that whenever Israel investigates itself, nothing of note will ever come out of it.
And if it’s not bad enough for Palestinian civilians, it’s even worse for foreign nationals: historically, no Israeli solider has ever been jailed for the unlawful killing of a Western citizen, and any investigation follows the same process: an initial denial, then claims of “accidental misidentification” and even in those rare occasions where military personnel are found to be responsible, it results in a reprimand, rather than a criminal charge.
Given this history of the total lack of accountability when Israel investigates its own, the Australian government faces the choice that it has avoided for much of the Gaza genocide. It can continue treating Israel as an exceptional case – the very chosen people – condemning serious incidents with ineffective words of outrage, while protecting the broader relationship with Israel, or it can finally stand up for itself – and its citizens – and apply the standards it claims to support under international law.
Until then, Australia will continue to behave like a weakling on the world stage, a pissant that no-one will take seriously, because it’s not even serious enough to stand up for its own citizens. And this is all because of the shameful behaviour of this Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, Foreign Minister Wong, Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke – in fact, the entire Cabinet – who will go down in the history books as the people who had the opportunities to stand for something meaningful when it mattered the most but ended up standing for nothing at all.
The Netanyahu government is heading towards an election in October against the background of the Gaza war, the occupation of the West Bank, attacking almost every country in the West Asia region, and within an increasingly polarised Israeli political system.
Of course, Australia can’t control Israeli politics, but it can control Australian policy – or, at least, we think it can – and decide what standards it will apply within its diplomatic relationships, and apply a lot more pressure on Israel than just the selective use of a few meaningless angry words of outrage.
This is ultimately why the issue of the killing of Zomi Frankcom is so important. Her death is not just another footnote in the enormous list of casualties in Israel’s unjust war on Gaza; it’s yet another test of whether citizenship means anything when an Australian is killed by the military of a state that Australia – for some strange reason – regards as a friend and an ally.
The Albanese government will continue to say that it wants accountability and Wong will shout at the clouds and insist that she’s outraged, but more than two years after Frankcom’s death, Israel says nobody will be prosecuted, the commander who ordered the operation says he’s not sorry, and Australian policy towards Israel continues to be largely intact. And then, to top it all off, the Australian government opens the door and allows Israeli military personnel and veterans run through the streets of Sydney, as if everything is normal and nothing untoward has occurred. It’s really rubbing shit in our faces.
The government will be hoping that the Frankcom case will soon be forgotten about and recedes from the public view – and if it ever does resurface, it will have its vast lexicon of weasel words that it can use to attack the government of Israel. But the Australian public won’t forget – it’s an incident that will long reside in the pantheon of Australian diplomatic cowardice – and the question will always be not just about why Zomi Frankcom was killed, but why the Australia was prepared to do nothing about it.
A song from the musical ,”My Fair Lady” begins , “Words , words , words !! I’m so sick of words ! I hear words all day through ,
First from him , now from you ! Is THAT all you blighters can do ?? “
It fits perfectly with this grovelling Australian government ( both state and federal) , who couldn’t abase themselves any lower to
Israel and America if they tried . They humiliate and shame this nation with their cowardice . That they happily welcome to this country the perpetrators of crimes against humanity in Palestine , the IDF , while equally happily sending refugees to Nauru for 30 years , never to return is unforgivably obscene . A substantial dose of racism is mixed in with their inhumanity . Poor fellow our country !
Thanks Eddy and David.
The government’s response or lack thereof demonstrates that you’re on your own overseas. Wong will wag her finger and then authorise weapons (‘non-lethal!’ she screams) sales to the very regime that did the act.
The ALP clearly does not care.